Tag Archives: sex

Now married to the love of his luxurious-if-troubled life, can billionaire spank-lover Christian Grey (Jamie Shadows in the Sun Dornan) and his innocent and grounded new wife, Anastacia (Dakota How to be SingleJohnson), live happily ever after, or will shady figures from Christian’s murky upbringing come back to haunt Mr and Mrs Grey’s honeymoon period?

Series created by: Bruce Miller – Based on the novel by: Margaret Atwood

Directed by: Mike Barker

THE SOUND OF GLASS

“How did you survive her?”

Isolated to her room for 13 days after bursting Selena Joy’s (Yvonne Strahovski) pregnancy bubble by getting her “monthly woe” in “Late” (reviewed HERE) last week, a cabin fevered Offred (Elisabeth Moss) takes to laying in her cupboard, wherein she discovers the Latin phrase which this fourth episode is named after, scratched into the wall. Believing it to be written by her predecessor in the Waterford house, Offred is determined to find a translation to the antiquated message and decipher the meaning.

As an 80s-baby growing up in the 90s, I know I used to watch Baywatch. It was prime ITV Saturday night cheese. The Hoff in those red trunks, Pamela Anderson in that red swimsuit, plenty of slow-motion gunning through golden sands and diving into crystal clear Californian oceans while the theme song challenged you not to sing along…. But aside from those iconic cornerstones, I seriously struggle to remember much more about it. Yet, as I sat down last night for what I anticipated to be a full-on nostalgia fest, all I kept thinking throughout this $69million big screen revival was: surely the TV show wasn’t like this?!!

27 years before Hulu remade it into a highly-acclaimed and much-discussed, must-see television series, Margaret Atwood’s eye-opening 1985 dystopian novel was adapted to film, courtesy of a Harold Pinter screenplay. Critically commended though it was, an eleventh hour change of director led to rewrites Pinter was “too tired” to work on, so he suggested incoming helmer Volker Schlöndorff return to the author for any “tinkering,” leading the Nobel-Prize winning playwright to all-but disown credit for such a “hodgepodge.”

Influenced by a wave of public anticipation, I knew I wanted to watch this heavily-hyped Starz/Amazon Prime fantasy drama series despite having zero knowledge of the 2001 Neil Gaiman novel upon which it is based. After the hour long pilot premiered online this Monday I’m still not convinced I’m any more clued up on the premise than I was before, but I do know that showrunners and screenwriters Bryan Fuller and Michael Green have me curious to know more about this violent and muddily mythologically-inspired present day parallel America.

Opening on an intense lovemaking scene between Las Vegas chef Frank (Michael Midnight Special Shannon) and aspiring fashion designer Lola (Imogen Green Room Poots), I honestly thought I was in for a Fifty Shades-style erotic thriller with debuting director Matthew Ross’ protagonist-named straight-to-DVD feature. But aside from this brief and surprising snatch of nudity from the gorgeous Ms. Poots, this is as titillating as Frank & Lola gets. The ensuing 80-plus minutes does deal with sexual themes, but in a far darker and less intimate manner.

Much like schlocky Syfy fare such as Sharknado, Lavalantula and Megashark vs Crocosaurus, the title of co-writer/director Jordan Rubin’s film debut leaves you in no doubt as to the preposterous nonsense in store for horror-comedy fans who lodgeZombeavers in their DVD players. Sadly, even alert to the absurdities that awaited me and open to taking nothing seriously, I was still enormously dissatisfied with the moronic mutant madness which played out over a mercifully meagre runtime.